You are Noel Tiberius di Hazaran, the warrior-queen of the mountain kingdom whose name you share by birth. And this is what you hope will be your last return to the land where you and the rest of those who share your blood and your training were created. ‘Enhanced’ with the blood of monstrous yōma at a young age, you and the other survivors of that process completed a brutal training regimen meant to turn you into the ultimate monster-hunters.

That is what you were told, and as the truth has come out that was not entirely false. Certainly you always knew that the Organization was suspect, but learning that they had your father overthrown and killed to ensure that you had nowhere else to turn was eye-opening. That was even before you started to learn even more about what they had been doing – creating the very monsters you were ostensibly meant to destroy, deliberately pushing its own warriors to the edge of emotional collapse, and eliminating potential troublemakers. They had wanted to create a warrior with powerful yōki and regenerative abilities, but who they could control to use against their enemies.

Now you’re on the verge of pushing them out of your homeland, apparently once and for all, with the surprise invasion of their last major facility on the island of Lavinia. Two of the moving parts for that invasion plan fell into place the way they were meant to, with a raiding party of your own kind slipping ashore to mark targets for two armed corvettes that sailed in behind you, also under cover of night.

The third prong, an infantry push into the hills overlooking your enemy’s last port in the region so that a number of modern mortar teams could hit targets that the corvettes might miss due to their firing angle. After helping to get that infantry advance back on track, you’ve arrived on a hilltop that has a view down onto the port – specifically, you can see several locations where your enemy has cover against the shelling from the waterfront, and has begun a counterattack.

“Well,” you muse aloud, “we can’t have that now can we?”

You turn to Cameron, the senior officer among this formation of soldiers. “You can see those positions from here, correct?”

Sometimes it’s hard for you to judge – since your vision, especially in the dark, is so much keener than a normal human’s is.

Cameron nods. “I see the flashes, yes. But I can’t judge the range.”

“I can do that for you,” you assure him. “I want each crew to focus their efforts on a single position. When they hit their target I want a callout, if they miss their target with their remaining rounds I want a callout for that too. Go ahead of me and let them all know, I’ll be following after.”
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